


ghosts with benefits

by notwest



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bulges, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Pining, Voyeurism, dicks all the way out, ghost boyfriend, silly jamfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-25 13:09:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16661655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notwest/pseuds/notwest
Summary: A century after his death, Dave Strider discovers an unusual connection with the attractive troll that has moved into his old apartment.





	1. take the cotton out of your ears

**Author's Note:**

> life is short, get off while you can.

You don't remember dying. Which seems like a giant, universal rip off, seeing as along with the first CD you bought and the first porn you ever watched, dying's just one of those things you really oughta remember.

If you concentrate, you can remember your life: growing up in Texas; the game that changed everything; the slightly blurred faces of people you used to very transparently pretend not to care about. And Time. That sure was a whole thing. You were a God of Time. Maybe that's why you've stuck around so damn long.

Whenever you think too hard about the past, your chest starts to hurt in a way that is definitely not cool. You force yourself to move on. So what if a million years ago you had friends and a family and some sort of purpose? That was gone now.

You sleep a lot. You cry more than you'd like to admit. You jerk off, when the mood strikes.

The Earth is colorless. You spend most of your time drifting in and out of it, and all of your time wishing you could stop existing altogether. But instead, you're forced to watch the world keep spinning--there, but not really there--in some nowhere space that kind of feels like you're swimming inside a giant cotton ball. 

And then, exactly one thousand, three hundred and fifty eight years after you die, Karkat Vantas is born.

***

You're lounging around your apartment–or at least, what is an exact physical and spatial approximation of your apartment, in whatever ghost realm you tended to occupy these days–when the front door slams open.

You sit up, startled out of your hourly nap, to see a small troll barge into the apartment, followed by a tired looking, giant white crab monster. You can't hear much of the world anymore, that went away along with the color, and for once you are glad for it. Because it sure looks like that kid is screaming his head off.

You stick around and watch the shouty troll kid. Slowly but surely, sound seeps into the world. You learn his name is Karkat. You learn that he thinks he's some kind of mutant, even though you can't figure out why. You watch him retreat from his friends and into himself, inexplicably wishing you could do something to help.

You get so down about it sometimes that you literally have to take a break. He just needs  _ someone. _ You haven't felt this much about anything in a long fucking time. The feelings become so intense that sometimes you need to leave the apartment for a while. They become so intense that one day you decide you have to leave for good. 

Stepping away from the apartment feels like a lungful of air after being held underwater. A safe retreat into the comforting, grey indifference of the universe. You disappear eagerly into the void. 

When you inevitably return, the world is quiet again. And of course, it's not long before your curiosity about the kid who was able to affect you so much all those years ago resurfaces. And that's how you ended up making a visit to your old apartment, to discover a fully grown Karkat Vantas. Your mouth drops open and you say the first words you've said in a thousand years.

"Holy shit."

Your sad, little troll kid has become an angry, very attractive troll adult.

***

You become… addicted to him. It's hard to explain, but things are just more solid when you're around Karkat. You can make out more and more sounds, too. Sweet god, how you've missed listening to music. 

You can't deny it's more than a little embarrassing. Karkat becomes kind of like your invisible best friend. Except he has no idea who you are or that you even exist, and you're the one who's invisible. You do everything together. You sit with him while he has dinner. While he reads. While he watches three terrible romcoms back to back to back. It's nice, in a totally sad and pathetic way. 

He's also the most emotional being you've ever seen with your own two eyes. Seriously. You're pretty sure you've watched him actually cry over spilled milk. The more you hang around him, the more you start to feel. His feelings reverberate through your noncorporeal body, like you're some kind of ghost feelings leech.

Being around Karkat is kind of like hitting some kind of enormous emotion vape. You sort of love it? It's different, something you can focus on that's not the apathetic pull of a timeless existence. Watching someone all day probably comes with super creepy price tag, but some of that should definitely be discounted due to that fact you're a ghost, or whatever.

One day you're hanging out with Karkat, as you do, while he reads a book before bed. It's not the most interesting thing you guys do together. Honestly, you even find his actual sleep cycles to be more interesting than this. Despite the fact that you have an extremely high tolerance for watching Karkat do boring things like reading for five straight hours due to him being so god damn fucking hot, you fall into a nap. 

You wake up thinking about how warm you are. Which is weird, because you're never warm. You're not physically able to feel temperature due to the whole, not owning a organic body thing. And then the warmth starts to localize, until you trace it down your chest and are faced with the reality of the situation: your raging ghost boner.

You roll over and look at Karkat, and a surge of arousal hits you like a punch to the chest. 

He's leaning back on the bed frame, legs bent in half and spread wide open, and from where you had fallen asleep at the foot of the bed, you have a incredible view of his flushed and dripping nook, and the three fingers he's rhythmically pumping in and out of it. 

Well, you're not just gonna… not deal with this, right? You haven't felt this kind of urge in such a long time, your dick probably has cobwebs. You kind of thought this part of life was way beyond you, to be honest. It's not like you don't touch yourself on the odd occasion, but it never quite feels the same as it did when you were alive. 

This, however. You can almost feel the blood rushing to your cock, and you can see it jerking every time Karkat lets out another pleasured mewl. The desire, the ache in your crotch only gets worse as you watch Karkat fuck himself on his fingers, his moans ratcheting up to match his pace. Fuck it. 

You skip the soft shit and grab your dick. It's like riding a bike, if riding a bike was morally ambiguous at best, a complete breach of privacy, and involved you rubbing your bare ass all over the seat as you rode. 

This is like hands down, the hottest display you've ever seen. You stroke yourself easily to the sight, and soon enough Karkat loses himself. There are like, Carrie levels of red slick splashing down on the mattress, and then his knees give at the same time that a red, thrashing tentacle comes sliding out of the hole, and he fucking _keens._

The sound of him tunes your insides just right and you can't help letting out an indulgent moan as you come with your eyes squeezed shut and hips jerking into your fist and _holy fuck. _

You're catching your breath when you feel the bed shift, and hear Karkat's ensuing screech.

"Who the  _ fuck _ are you!?"

You blink your eyes open, shifting yourself up on the bed until you can see that Karkat is standing straight up on the edge of the bed, pressing himself into the corner like he's just seen a roach run across the floor. Except, he's somehow looking  _ directly at you. _

"Um. Sup?" You shrug. "I think I'm your friendly, neighborhood ghost."

"A ghost," he repeats, and you nod. 

He just looks at you for a minute, blinking slowly, and when his mouth finally opens again he explodes. You can't even catch everything he's yelling, but there's definitely a more than a few mentions of psychopathy, blonde freaks, breaking and entering, and general perversion. 

To be honest, you're struggling not to laugh at the absurdity of the entire situation, and the funniest thing about this is that amongst all of this he still has a hand frozen around his bulge, which is wiggling around energetically. You glance down to check your own situation, and yep, your dick is also definitely still out.

"Hey, I was here first, dude."

Karkat stops his tirade to look at you, and then his his eyes go wide. He scans slowly up and down your form, gaze lingering at your crotch and you flush, slightly.  "You're a human," he observes faintly.

"Yeah bro, the of the deadest variety."

He jumps to the floor, eyes darting around the bedroom. You can't tell if he's looking for a weapon or an escape route. You pivot and scoot further onto the bed, resting your head against the wall with your feet straight out in front of you.

How can he be so fucking hot without even trying. He’s pacing now, poppy red tentacle dick proudly waving in the air, and your eyes follow its movements like a magician’s pocket watch. If you’re being honest, this is still pretty much doing it for you. 

He stops suddenly, and spins toward you. “A thousand years ago, this entire planet was overtaken by the Alternian Empire.”

You nod. You don’t remember that, but of course, you’ve never remembered anything. You can't even remember the last time you saw anyone else, human or troll.

“Humans were wiped out of existence.” He says that part using drawn out words, like you were dropped on your head as a kid. Funny that you definitely were. 

“Oh, you mean including me, I guess.” You shrug. “Boo?”

And then something happens you were not expecting. Karkat yells, and then lunges at you, leaping onto the bed and throwing his body over yours, pressing you into the wall with his hips.

You're immediately overwhelmed by the feeling of his blood hot body over yours, and extremely overwhelmed by the warmth and wetness of his bulge as it slides for the briefest moments against your cock. You let out the smallest of groans, but unfortunately, instead of the sexual ravishing you so clearly deserve, Karkat starts pinching the skin on your face, chest, and arms with a scrunched up expression on his face. 

"I don't know how long it's been for you but normally foreplay doesn't exactly go like this, dude."

Karkat ignores you, but he does scoot back so he's sitting on your knees. He puts his head in his hands, looking distraught. "I don't know what's more fucking ridiculous, the idea that you're some kind of ghost, which don't exist, or that you're a human, who are all extinct! And you're telling me you're both!"

"Yep," you say, popping the P.

"And not to fucking mention the fair fucking fact that you appeared while you were–" He glares down at your dick. The red flush that rises to his face is absolutely delicious.

"Sorry, I was just… enjoying the show? You're really hot, dude."

His bulge is still wiggling, so you know he's not too distraught over this. You like how expressive it is. Like a dog's tail. 

“You have to be… You're a fucking ghost," he says faintly.

“I can be,” you say and waggle your eyebrows. 

You watch his face morph in a number of incredible expressions before he finally jumps off of you. He starts pacing up and down the room again, muttering different varieties of  _ this isn't happening _ to himself. You absolutely do not waste the opportunity to stare at his ass every time he turns away from you. 

On his seventeenth circuit around the room you witness his bulge retract. You salute it mournfully. 

"See you later, old pal."

Karkat wheels toward you, eyes widening. "Do  _ not _ talk to my bulge!" he screeches.

If you concentrate, you can feel a buffet of different emotions wafting off Karkat in waves. Confusion, embarrassment, rage… There's a little fear mixed in there too, aw buddy. 

You put your hands up. "Okay, okay. I promise I'm not like, here to steal your soul, or seek revenge for the extinction of my race or anything. Why can't we just be two cool dudes, and chill together like we're not in the middle of some kind of reality defying, interdimensional space rift phenomenon?”

Karkat starts backing slowly out of the room, shaking his head at you, like he's trying to clear you from his vision. When he speaks again, his tone is bordering on hysterical. 

"You know what? I'm probably– I am probably just having an episode. I should just go take a shower, and when I get out, hopefully you'll be gone!”

"Okay, whatever you say big man. Also, thanks? I guess? For, you know. Returning me to the physical realm. I might go take a walk. You know what I really wanna do? Stop by a Wendy's. Are those still around?"

He's out of sight before you finish talking. Soon after that, the world goes blank. Instead of taking a walk, you end up falling asleep on Karkat's bed again. Who can blame you? Having a physical form sure is exhausting.

When you wake up, you’re back in the void. You know the drill. Endless silence, a blanket of grey. Nothing to write home about, except it all seems that much duller after… Well, after Karkat. 

Speaking of, you hear Karkat shuffling toward the bedroom and quickly lay yourself across his bed to greet him. His reaction will definitely be worth it. At least your pants are fully on this time. 

But when Karkat enters the room, his eyes sweep past you like you aren't there. You watch him creep across the room with a thin towel draped around his slim waist. Little water droplets are falling from his damp hair, landing his neck and sliding down the grey, muscular expanse of his chest. Oof. The sight leaves you a little breathless. 

After he's checked everywhere in the room, including behind the door, under the bed, and in the closet, he breathes out a giant sigh of relief. Damn. You can’t pretend that doesn’t hurt a little. 

You try talking to him, jumping up and down, and waving your hands in front of his face dumbly like people do in movies. No dice. What a bummer. It was really awesome actually getting to talk to Karkat, even though he was majorly freaking out the majority of the time. 

You go back to being an emotional voyeur again, but all you can think about is getting the vibrancy back into your world. You even jerk off a couple of times, wondering if you just have to reactivate some latent ghost dick powers or something. It doesn't work, though when you reflect on it, you wonder if touching yourself vigorously on the couch while you watched Karkat eating a bowl of cereal in the kitchenette might have been a little  _ too _ on the weird side.


	2. a researcher's job is never done

It's movie night. Well, it's what you think of as movie night, anyway. Really it's just you watching Karkat watch what looks suspiciously like a troll knockoff version of the Notebook.

It's been three months since you "met" Karkat. You've since given up on trying to break through to the land of the living, but you still spend most of your time hanging around him, and most importantly, sipping on his emotions through the tiny straw you've squeezed under the door of his life.

You're lounging next to him on the couch when the shift in mood music in the movie indicates the start of a love scene. You watch interestedly as Karat sits up a little straighter. And then he starts shifting on the couch, and you can feel the tendrils of his arousal creeping into your belly. Oh, fuck yes.

You immediately become a masturbation cheerleader, chanting Karkat on as he pauses the movie and pulls down his pants enough to get at the goods. You nearly stand up and appload when he finally slips his hand down there, throwing his head back with a groan.

You're entranced by the vision of Karkat touching himself; the way he drags his non-occupied hand up his chest and sucks one finger into his mouth is so unfairly sexy that you're nearly drooling.

With a beautifully soft sound from his lips, that slimy, sick sexy bulge comes sliding out onto his fingers, and you've had enough with watching.

Your fingers fumble with your fly, a little uncoordinated due to the criss crossed waves of Karkat's pleasure that are flooding your mind. You're still desperate to get in on the action, and pretty soon you're sitting side by side, touching yourselves in rhythm like some kind of cross dimensionally long distance and maybe admittedly a little one-sided relationship.

You're being cradled to the highest heights as Karkat's shivers through his orgasm, completely flooding the couch beneath him with slurry. You follow on his heels, helplessly cooing toward his pretty face as you come on your shirt, god damn you haven't felt this good in so long, you might be the one that's dead but he's the angel you swear–

Suddenly Karkat gasps and freezes, and you open your eyes at the shift in the air. He's now sitting stock still and facing the paused movie. It's so quiet you can't even hear him breathing. You don't need to guess what's going on, because you can _feel_ his anxiety rising in your chest.

No fucking way. He saw you.

"You know, just because you aren't going to look at me doesn't mean I'm not right here, and I'm not going to lie, Karkat, it hurts a little."

Karkat doesn't turn toward you, so you keep going. "Just so you know, that was so fucking hot dude. Jesus fuck, I never thought my best orgasms would come post mortem. Wait, doesn't orgasm mean 'little death' in Latin or something? Man, that's weird—“

You're rudely interrupted by Karkat's loud shriek. He vaults himself off the couch, refusing to look in your direction.

"Please, god," he cries, "Why the fuck is this happening to me!? What have I done to deserve some kind of demented, freak sex ghost? I promise, I'll do whatever it takes, I won't even so much as _look_ at my bulge ever a-fucking-gain! How's that? Is this what you wanted, Crabdad? Huh!?"

No lie, his distress is kind of sobering you a bit. Despite the possible lubrication applications, crying is not too sexy on its own. He's also still got his pants around his ankles, which is mostly just hilarious.

"Woah, man. I'm not a sex ghost, I'm just a ghost ghost. I'm always around, not just when you're jacking it, but most of the time you can't see me, feel me?'

Karkat slowly turns around to face you, his face tortured. Oh shit, his wiggly dick is still out. You're temporarily distracted by how lovely and red it is. If you could only engage regularly with the physical world, you would definitely kill to get your mouth around that thing.

He opens his mouth a couple of times, sculpted eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "You've been watching me?"

You gesture to your crotch, where your dick is still on display. Because of course it is. That's just exposed dick solidarity. "Well, yeah. Obviously I've been watching you. Actually, I'd love to know if I can touch you though, can I touch you?"

Karkat steps back. "Fuck no! I meant have you been watching me when I'm not—“ He hisses and puts his hands on the top of his head and you internally swoon. His forearms are built like iron, and his chest is broad and strong looking, divided by gently carved lines and indents that are very appealing, in an admittedly superficial way.

"Not… slicking the pipes? Cranking your wet wiggly? Fiddling your fox hole?"

"Shut the fuck up!" he screams. "I'd rather die than keep talking to you!"

You cross your arms and your legs at the same time and lean back on the couch. "Wow, that's super inconsiderate of you, Karkat. In fact, I think you owe me an apology. Actually, can you do me a favor? Can you touch my face? Karkat, please, I've been dead for a century, please will you come touch my face? I just want to see if you can—I promise it’s not going to be weird. See, here, I'll even put my dick away."

When you finish tucking yourself back into your pants and look up, Karkat has dropped to the floor and is grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"Fuck," he finally breathes. "Okay. Fine."

Wait, really? Holy shit. You watch as he laboriously pulls himself up, facing opposite you. It’s so _weird_ how you can feel the muddle of emotions rolling off of him as clearly as if they were your own. It's immersive, but you can also still tell that they're _his_.

He turns around slowly, and this time you can feel yourself disappear. It's sharp, almost like a rubber band snapping. Just like that, the connection is gone.

Karkat looks at you, unseeing, and his eyebrows crease. "What the fuck," he mutters quietly, and slowly waddles over to flop tiredly back onto the mess he's made of the couch.

Fuck! Something stings in your chest. You can tell it's not what Karkat is feeling though. No, this emotion is all yours. For the first time that you can remember, you actually feel something.

You're upset.

***

The next day, you hang over Karkat's shoulder while he does some very interesting Trollgle searches, employing some very choice, very embarrassing keywords _._

"Masturbation ghost, really?" you say aloud after one search, affronted. "I'm deeper than that, Karkat. I've lived."

After his online research has predictably failed, Karkat starts talking to his friends in a series of ever more mortifying phone conversations.

Turns out, no one has ever heard of a human sex ghost. In one very bizarre, in-person conversation, a long haired, glassy eyed troll suggests that maybe it's Karkat's blood given power to be "makin' miracles happen and shit."

Yeah, fuck that guy.

***

You've definitely started talking out loud to Karkat throughout the day, but in a more interesting turn of events, he's actually started talking to you, too.

"I don't know if I'm just going crazy or not, but I saw you!" He's pacing again. "Yes, many low-blooded trolls do display certain unnatural abilities but I always thought I was way too far on the mutant side to manifest anything like that!"

He walks over to a crest that's hanging on the wall in the living room. He explains that it's the blood crest that was passed down to him from his ancestors. Blood as the legend goes, was all about connections and bonds.

If you're understanding the situation correctly, Karkat has formed a bond with you? Through... orgasms?

***

A few weeks go by, and you are starting to think you just might have broken Karkat. For starters, he's obsessed with your existence. And not in the flattering sense. He spends hours researching ghosts, humans, curses, and everything in between. He's long since stopped asking any of his friends for advice, which is good at least.

He also spends enormous chunks of time in the apartment now, pacing. Just pacing. Every once in a while his eyes dart around him, presumably searching for you. The way he does everything now like he's super paranoid that he's being watched, which he pretty much always is, is pretty hilarious. It's also more than a little endearing.

"Fuck you!" he yells into the air one day, after an especially vigorous pacing session. "This is so fucking ridiculous, you're ruining my life and I don't even know your _name_!"

Oof. "It's Dave," you respond quietly. But of course, he can't hear you.

He continues his tirade in mutters, except this time they're to himself and not to any perceived phantasms that may or may not be lurking in his presence. After a few minutes he sits himself down on the couch, a steely look in his eyes.

"I can't believe I'm going to do this. Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Then he reaches down and unzips his pants, and your jaw drops.  

He pulls his pants and underwear off completely, but leaves his chunky black sweater on, which, granted, is a little bit of a weird look but you can work with it.

He lays down on the couch, spreads his legs and touches himself roughly, all business from the start. And to your surprise, in between tiny, restrained moans, he actually starts talking to you.

"I hope you're enjoying the _mmph_ show, you egregious ghost fuck!"

Part of you wants to be spiteful, to just sit there and not engage with his obvious ploy to summon you like the world's most perverted shaman, except for the fact that this is exactly what you want. Not to mention that even when he's growling fiercely and calling you a flaming asshole while fingering himself, he's still hotter than all fuck. Maybe even especially then.

Bottom line, the fact that he's touching himself and thinking about you in the same moment is almost all you need to nearly lose it in your pants right there. There's also the fact that everything he's feeling is coursing freely under your skin, it's a heavy mix of aggression and lust and desperation that's fucking got you more hot and ready than a freshly nuked microwave dinner.

Fuck it. You abandon all pretense and rip off all your clothes, immediately grabbing your dick. You stroke yourself while looking down into his eyes, standing perpendicular to him and directly over the couch.

Karkat groans and shakes as his bulge makes its grand entrance. You squeeze yourself tighter at the sight, because holy fuck. And then he gasps loudly, and you are at the perfect vantage point to see his eyes widen as you feel yourself pop into existence.

Panting and swearing, he stares up at you, and by extension, your dick, which is sitting pretty directly above his face.

"You rang," you say breathlessly.

And then there's this weird moment, where you are staring into Karkat's eyes and you feel… something. You can't put your finger on exactly what it is, but it's soft and fleeting. Some kind of familiarity and warmth that you wouldn't even know how to recognize anymore.

The bubble shatters when you feel your stomach swoop with a sudden nervousness that isn't yours. And then Karkat jerks his body up, grabs you by the hips and shoves your cock directly down his throat.

Your brain fizzles. If you could talk at all, it would be in actual key smashes. Holy fuck, Karkat's mouth around you feels more incredible than you could have ever imagined, and to be honest, now that you know heaven doesn't really exist, you think this just might be adequate reparation.

You nearly cry when Karkat pulls his lips off your dick with an obscene sound to ask, "Who are you?"

Thankfully, before you respond, he quickly resumes his rhythmic and enthusiastic blowjob. And that, ladies and gentletrolls, is the story of how you moaned your own name during sex.

You catch on quickly. Karkat is using your shared boner connection to have a getting to know you conversation before you can evaporate into the ether. It feels like a sexy, lightning round version of speed dating.

The funny thing is, you really don't have that much to tell him. However. You are definitely down to drag this out for as long as possible. If he's gonna work the system then god damn it, so are you.

“Why are you here?” he asks, before he swirls his tongue around the ridge of your cock in a way that makes your eyes nearly roll all the way out the back of your skull.

“I don’t know,” you start to say, and then remember that there’s at least one thing connecting you to this place, to Karkat. “I, uh, used to live here.”

He doesn’t say anything to that, just nods and resumes his actions. You can admire his efforts to keep this formal, or as formal as one can be while holding an otherworldly boner in one’s mouth as collateral for information about said being. Said being being you.

He’s trying to stay detached. But as you may or may not know from your technically historic personal experience, the problem is that the _playing it cool_ card never really works when you have a cock digging into the back of your throat. Case in point, you can feel the desire ebbing from Karkat as he sucks you off, it's a gentle but persistent ache that you happen to have just the right combination of tools and opportunity to take care of with ease.

"Hey," you ask the next time he stops for air, "Do you want me to, uh. Get you off?"

Karkat snaps his head up. "No! What do you think this is!? I'm doing this solely for research purposes, so don't fucking get any ideas."

Is he kidding? "What? You can't get all prude now, besides you're begging for it, I can feel it!"

In his incredulity, he lets go if your dick completely. You say a small prayer of loss. Hang in there buddy, this is for the greater good.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I can feel you!"

“Of course you can feel me, nookwipe, I'm touching you!"

"No," you insist, and dart a hand down to squeeze his bulge firmly, sliding your fist from base to tip. It elicits a hearty moan from Karkat, which you helplessly mirror, your hips jerking with the stolen sensation. Shakily, you tell him, "I can feel _that_."

Karkat's eyes widen, and when you push him backwards with two hands on his chest he lets you, until you're laying in between his thighs with a beautiful red tentacle dick squirming through your fingers.

Finally. You've spent too long already not doing this. You dip your head and suck the bulge into your mouth, moaning around it immediately. It's kind of like feeling your own tongue on yourself, which is trippy as fuck, but you can't lie, it's also _amazing_.

You use your newfound sex powers to drive Karkat crazy. You can feel exactly how hard to suck, where it feels good to drag your teeth, and exactly what to repeat and when. You keep at the bulge like a baby cow to an udder, until Karkat has devolved into one endless moan, mindlessly rolling his hips against your mouth and tugging at your hair with both hands.

"God, you're so fucking hot, how can you do this to me," you gasp at him, mostly rhetorically.

"Fuck, I don't know, _please_ ," he cries, and you somehow know exactly what he's asking for. You slip two fingers into the top of his sheathe, right above his bulge, moving them around until you can press into his shame globes, hard.

He jerks and comes like a waterfall, pale red fluid drenching both your face and the couch. You don't have time to focus on upholstery, though, because you're also peaking, rutting against one of his legs and gasping as the overwhelming sensation of his orgasm sweeps through you.

_Holy fuck_.

You collapse onto Karkat as you both catch your breath.

"So," you finally ask with an embarrassing giggle, "Research, huh."

"That was, I–" He sputters beautifully and flails, trying to kick you off him and onto the floor. You grab his sides and hold tight, determined to stay on the couch. He gives up after a few seconds, and you grin up at him smugly.

"I can't believe you pulled a literal _'for science'_ on me," you whisper, and he rolls his eyes, slipping them shut a few seconds later.

You lay with your head on his chest for a long time. It's probably the best night of your entire non-life. You're swaddled in the warm, velvety feeling of Karkat's skin on yours, the regular rise and fall of his chest, the soft, even breaths on your face. You drift.

When you open your eyes again, Karkat is sitting up on the couch. The world is muted once again, your connection gone.

You watch as Karkat sighs and stands up, turning to stare directly at the spot you are in, his face twisting unreadably.

"I hope you enjoyed that, you sick fuck."

He turns away again, and you dutifully watch his ass until it disappears into the hallway.

_Damn._ You have got to hit that again.


	3. seeking boyfriend permanence

So your relationship begins. Karkat starts “summoning” you, first at least once a week, all under the guise of _figuring out what the fuck is going on_ , and then with delightful regularity, until even he can’t pretend that he’s not enjoying your company.

You grow more and more in sync with him. He doesn’t even have to get very far anymore into his own routine anymore before you show up; sometimes you don’t even realize you’ve materialized until he steps forward and pulls you to him by the hips, claiming you with a fierce kiss.

You have wildly incredible sex, every single time. You can’t remember anything about your sexual experiences—of no doubt there were many—when you were alive, but you wouldn’t hesitate to believe that your nights with Karkat take the cake.

You two have tried just about every position you could since that first night, but you’ve learned  that there's nothing you enjoy more than laying him flat on his back, and licking him until he sees stars.

You might technically be a God, here, but boy is he a thing to be worshiped.

You set up your own mental Karkat orgasm leaderboard, and you make it your afterlife’s work to always make him come harder than he did the time before.

But what you like even more than all of that, are the soft moments you share in the afterglow, when you’re both lying on your sides with your limbs solidly tangled and Karkat puts his fingers through your hair, and looks into your eyes, and you feel so very _real_. Sometimes you can hardly breathe for the intensity of feeling shooting through you, as sweet as they are painful.

You’re not even sure if they’re his feelings, or yours.

The more you’re with Karkat, the less you want to leave. And you know he feels the same way. Sometimes, after he realizes you’ve disappeared and before he remembers you can still see him, you catch this sad look on his face that sends a new, unpleasant feeling slicing through your chest—guilt.

But you could never give up being with him. There’s something about sharing yourself with someone, that makes every day that pass a little faster, that makes the void seem a little more distant. You discover you can bear the grey cold when you know that Karkats arms will be waiting for you when you emerge.

***

"Do you think ghosts can get STDs?”

“Dave, do you have any working semblance of an attention span? This is-- _mmnph_ \--serious.”

“I know,” you whine, despite snuggling further into Karkat’s side. You rub your cheeks lovingly against the rough chitin slashed triple into the skin on either sides of his torso. Grub scars, you recall, as you press a gentle kiss to each one. “But we’ve been over the facts more times than the jury at O.J. Simpson’s trial here.”

His brow wrinkles, and you drag yourself up his chest while maintaining the two fingers you’ve been working wetly into his nook. “Can’t we just…"

You kiss him, making sure to time it with some skillful massaging of his globes, and he groans into your mouth, before kissing you back. You internally cheer, until he pulls away before you can really get the party started.

“Am I the only one who is interested in making progress here? Now how exactly did your Time powers work? When you were alive.”

You sigh. “Karkat,” you say warningly, “Man, we’ve been through this. That’s not gonna work.”

Karkat hisses. “Really? Because as far as I’m concerned, you haven’t given me one good fucking reason as to why not!”

You don’t answer, instead choosing to slip another finger inside him and redouble your work on his sensitive globes. You both gasp, and you bring your lips back to his again, more demanding this time, praying that it will shut him up for now.

When Karkat drops the subject, you are too relieved to be suspicious. Thankfully, your next few evenings together are filled with regularly scheduled hot, nasty sex, and no more speculation on how to cheat the universe out of one dead Dave.

See, the problem is that Karkat has become obsessed with the idea of you sending yourselves back in time so that he can be with you while you’re alive. You haven't actually sat down to explain to him that time doesn’t work like that. That you wouldn’t replace some alive Dave, he would replace you. Not to mention that you can’t even time travel anymore. And oh boy have you tried.

If you're being really honest with yourself, you just can't deal with thinking about losing Karkat, even if it is to yourself. It's a non-option. So whenever he gives you a loaded look, you figure out a way to change the subject, or distract him before he even brings it up. Luckily, due to the nature of your concupiscent visits, the distracting part is usually relatively easy. Maybe you'll never have to deal with this.

You think that, right up until Karkat starts ignoring you.

Just like that, he stops summoning you, he stops talking to you out loud, and it seems like he's just generally settling into the approach of pretending you don't exist. Which is fairly ironic, since technically, you kind of don't. Even his emotions seem less free floating for the needy. You wonder if he would even want you here, if you were here. You try to tell yourself that Karkat doesn't owe you anything. It still hurts.

***

It's movie night again, and you're sitting next to Karkat, watching him watch the Notebook. Again.  

It starts slow, like a melancholy floating through the air, and though Karkat's sitting straight faced, you feel his chest clenching around this _emptiness._ But it's not empty the way you know empty. Instead of grey nothing, you feel like something is missing.

You're just starting to be able put the feeling into words in your head when Karkat's face crumples, and your world feels like it's toppling. You scoot over to him, desperate to do something but you can only watch his shoulders shake with your fingers frozen in place an inch above his back. You're helpless to comfort him, and it _hurts_. That's when it hits you. This isn't enough. It was never enough.

Sadness envelopes you like a dark cloud, and then something painful rips through your chest that's broken and raw, and you fall to the floor, unable to stop the loud, wet sob that pulls from your throat.

Karkat hiccups and gasps behind you, choking on air.

"Dave?"

You turn. What? Karkat's staring right at you through glossy eyes and cheeks stained with watery red. The sight of his face makes you cry harder, and god this would be so embarrassing if it wasn't Karkat. Karkat who just fucking broke you in two. Karkat, the stupidly hot fucking troll who just had to move into your goddamn apartment and pull you into his life.

He drops down, knocking you to the floor, and wraps you into a hug.

"I love you, you fucking asshole," you whisper into his ear.

He squeezes you tighter. "I love you, too. Shitstain.”

Karkat pulls himself up on top of you, straddling your hips. His eyes are shining. "I'm sorry."

You turn your head to the side. You can't bear to look him in the eyes. "Dude, no." You suck in a shuddery breath. "You didn't do anything, you were right and I was avoiding talking about anything because I thought we were fine, I thought we could just do this forever but we're just so fucking fucked from all sides it's like someone cut glory holes into our actual clothing--"

Karkat puts a hand on your chin, turning your face towards his again. "Shut the fuck up," he says, but he's smiling. "We'll figure it out. As long as you're willing to put in the goddamn work."

He puts a hand down over your heart, and you squeeze your eyes shut against more tears. While Karkat's been ignoring you, you've been thinking. A lot. And if you're actually going to help, you already know what you have to do.

You have to let Karkat go.

The thought of giving up the only bright fucking spot of light in your existence fills you with anguish that’s entirely your own. He thinks there's some other way to get you out, but you already know there isn't. You’ve had years, _decades_ , to think about this. You can’t be the one to hold Karkat down. You remember the sad, little mutant troll kid who stomped into your home, and how he made your heart ache. You finally have a chance to help him.

"Okay," you say. "Fuck it. Let's do this."

Karkat kisses you, then, and it's salty, wet and bittersweet, with a gratefulness that washes over you like a cool wave.

He keeps kissing down your body, pulling down your pants and licking the line of your cock until you're fully hard against his lips. Then he gets up so he can ride you, slow and sweet. You hold his hips while you try to commit every detail of him to memory. His face when it's soft and open, and when it's twisted with pleasure, his bulge sliding free, or curling in on itself, or smearing thick red slurry across his stomach. His embarrassed giggles, the raspy whispered _fuck_ s and _Dave_ s, those high whimpers you can squeeze out of him when you find just the right spot.

" _Perfect._ " You sit up and whisper sweet nothings into his neck as you push into him, and he flushes, even while cringing and swatting you away. You try not to think about the fact that you won't have the chance to tell him that ever again. You wrap your arms around your back so he can't see your face, and try not to think about the fact that for you, this is goodbye.

You fall to the floor beside each other afterward, after you've put back on your clothes. You're holding hands, while you try to combat the nausea that's slowly climbing up your throat. If you're going to do this, you don't have much time.

You reach for your timetables, the controls as familiar to your fingers as if you'd used them just yesterday. Holding your breath, you adjust the settings to drop Karkat back in time and into the living room of one lucky thousand year ago Dave.  

You don't know what hurts more: the fact that Karkat is about to spend his own happily ever after with someone who isn't you, not really, or that you're the sad asshole who's about to send him there. But considering the fucked up trajectory that the universe has apparently custom designed for your life, you never would have expected any less.

Here goes nothing. You think about Karkat, holding onto thoughts of him with all you have. His laugh, his smile, his fear, his sadness, his hope. You squeeze his hand, and as surreptitiously as you can, you scratch the records.

...You scratch the records.

You scratch the motherfucking broken ass, piece of shit records.

Nothing happens.

You sit up, frustrated. This was your wildcard, your best chance to fix the Dave shaped hole you've made in Karkat's life.

"Fuck," you mutter.

Karkat, who is still floating somewhere in post orgasmic bliss--you're welcome very much--clears his throat sleepily. "Mm--what?"

"Nothing, dude."

You can't pretend you don't feel a little relieved. And then you feel a little guilty because you feel relieved. You squash everything down, and tell yourself you're gonna find a way to send him back. For now though, you snuggle up to Karkat’s back on the floor, grateful to have at least one more moment with him.

***

You awake to the unpleasant sensation of being not so gently poked by alien claws. You weakly try to push Karkat away, because who the hell else would it be. Until you realize that Karkat shouldn’t be poking you at all, and not because it’s an obnoxious, assholish thing to do, but because you should effectively be nonexistent to him, like you always are.

You sit up, suddenly very wide awake. You're both still on the living room floor, and Karkat is staring at you with bugged out eyes. Well, more buggy than normal, you mean.

“What in the rancid, shit guzzling hell are you still doing here?”

"I don't--" you start to answer, and then stop because you're looking around now and holy fuck.

The world is technicolor. Everything around you is crystal clear, sounds are crisp, colors are vibrant and _alive_.

The void is gone. You can feel the solid tether connecting you to this world like an umbilical cord to a mother's placenta. You're looking around like you've finally got ahold of prescription glasses for the first time in your life, tears are forming at the edges of your eyes. You reach up to pull down the actual sunglasses that have been permanently attached to the top of your head. You haven't needed these in a long time.

Karkat is looking at you expectantly. "What even happened last night?" He gestures around the room wildly. You can't answer him. You're too busy being here. Solidly on Earth. In the present. With Karkat.

“Hello? Assjar! Are you going to keep sitting there with your mouth gaping like a newly hatched squawkbeast or are you going to address the literal only other being in the room with you?”

"I think... we did it. I'm actually here. I can feel it."

Now, Karkat is the one who's gaping. "Emotions!" he yells. "I've been thinking about this for a while--"

"Yeah, no shit."

"Shut the fuck up! I knew my shitty blood bond thing was about emotions. Maybe because last night we both said--"

"--Karkat, please," you interrupt again, placing a hand on your chest, "How am I supposed to live my newly acquired life knowing I was brought back to the land of the living by the power of _love_."

He pushes you over by your shoulder with both hands. "Fuck you. So you definitely don't think you're still… dead?"

You jump back up and tackle him, immediately pressing kisses to every part of his face, eventually landing on his lips. "Well, I know one part of me that's definitely alive and well."

Karkat groans, but doesn’t move to dislodge you otherwise. Sucker. You wantonly press your hips into his and he exhales loudly. God damn it, you’re literally already half hard just from thinking about him.

You enthusiastically eat Karkat out, curling your tongue up into his nook sheathe until you hear him moan in every pitch on the major scale. He shivers and whines when his bulge finally slides free, and then it's your turn to fall apart when he presses it against your ass, works you open, and fucks you hard, into the carpet. You can hear yourself whimpering, and it would definitely be embarrassing if it wasn't Karkat, if it wasn't so fucking _good_.

It's like all your senses have been heightened to a level you can't even comprehend. You can still feel Karkat's emotions, tinting the air like a drop of paint into a bowl of water. But you're also aware of your own growing collection of feelings.

When it’s over, you fall on top of eachother, spent. After a few minutes you’re starting to doze, like the lazy asshole you truly are, when you detect a soft wash of melancholy. You turn around so you’re both facing each other. Karkat is looking at you glass eyed, bottom lip trembling. You wipe the tears from the corners of his eyes with your thumbs. You know without asking.

"It's okay," you whisper, rubbing soothing circles into his chest. "It's over."

***

Life moves on. Sure, it's kind of dreary being the only human around. It’s not like anyone is suspicious of you though, being that your entire existence is so incredulous and unexpected, but when you go out you tend to keep a low profile just in case.

Being with Karkat is worth every double take, and every dash into an empty alleyway to avoid being seen head on. Especially when you end up making out heavily and getting handsy against the bricks.

There’s also a part of your brain that nags at you, as memories that have a thousand years worth of repression start to unfurl. You just know that there's more to this. Ancient faces swirling into increasing clarity, questions you just can't answer yet. You guess you'll just have to meet them when they come.

Until then, you squeeze your boyfriend tight, and try your damned hardest to enjoy every moment you have with him. After all, you only live once.

**Author's Note:**

> vaguely happy ending? sure why not. 
> 
> kick it with me or send prompts on [tumblr](https://davekatprompts.tumblr.com/)


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